I ran into Eddie Murphy‘s kid in Fullerton the other day. Christian Murphy, 17, was looking for some shoes.

The kid – who looks a lot like his dad but comes off as innocent, sweet and earnest – had three cell phones, and I don’t even want to know what kind of vehicle he drove down in, but he was bummed because he couldn’t find a special set of two pairs of Air Jordans known as a “Countdown Pack.”

Murphy pulled out one of his cell phones, went to the “tasks” program and showed me a whole list of rare Nikes he was looking for. He was having no luck. I guess when you’re 17, you can afford to be bummed about not finding the coolest sneakers.

The venue for this was something called the DunkXchange (www.dunkxchange.com), a kind of traveling swap meet for sneakerheads. It is the brainchild of an O.C. man named Gary Hughes (Trabuco Hills High, ’92), a basketball player who became obsessed with having the coolest kicks on the court.

Every week, he would try to get a new, near-exclusive pair of Nikes. One day, his mom, Ronni Hughes, bought him – online – a pair of $300 Nikes that had an unauthorized Heineken logo on them. That’s what made them rare. But they were counterfeits. Get that: counterfeit counterfeits.

Ripped off, he decided to start an exchange where this underworld of buyers and sellers of slightly used, or never used, sneakers could meet face to face. He held the first such meet in 2005, shortly before I first met his mother, who works for O.C. ARC, a group that helps developmentally disabled people find jobs. I’d talk to her every now and then, and she’d tell me about this crazy-successful business her son had started on, here it comes … a shoestring.

It took a little while for the DunkXchange to find its stride. (Last one. Really.) He brought in a partner, Curtis Brown of Buena Park, and they refined the concept.

On this day, they are at the InCahoots nightclub, which they’ve rented for the afternoon. Inside, its dark and there’s a thump-thump-thump of bass-driven hip-hop music, and I experience what it must actually feel like to be inside one of those lowered Civics that you want to take a snowplow to when they pull up next to you.

I don’t care if Eddie Murphy himself is inside – I’m going to be good for about 10 minutes. So I venture in with Gary, who, I should note, is shod today in something my shaky notes say are Airmax 1 Atmos-Asia Exclusives. They have black and white uppers, an “elephant-print” near the sole, black laces and an aqua swoosh.

They retailed for about $120 when released in limited supply in Asia, but have an aftermarket value of about $400. I would have paid, oh, $4 if I had to find something to tar a roof in. But that’s just me. I had come in a completely bitchin pair of red high-top P.F. Flyers – P.F. Flyers! – and they drew yawns.

As Gary and I weave through the dozens and dozens of vendors and buyers. They are almost all males between 14 and 21. And they are of every conceivable race. OK, I know, there’s only so many races. But they are all there.

And most of these guys seem to know Gary, who is a huge white guy with a little facial hair here and there.

“This industry is very loyal,” Gary tells me. “Take care of people, and they stay with you.”

What he means is that all these guys were also tired of getting ripped off online and they trust Gary to bring in reputable vendors. Doesn’t mean they’re cheap. Vendor Jeff Malabanan, 21, of Cerritos is wearing a pair of $4,000 Air Jordan 4s. Only 72 pairs of the grey sneaks were made. Some shoes go for as much as $9,000, he says, although there are lots in the $100 to $150 range.

Nike is about 90 percent of this market, and the manufacturer actually encourages it by putting out a dozen or two dozen styles per week, with very limited drops in stores around the world.

Gary and Curtis are now doing almost one show every weekend, all over the U.S. They charge $10 to buyers and $100 to sellers. They’ll get about 1,000 people in O.C., double than in NYC. Gary has hung onto his day job as a bus-scheduler for the OCTA.

At Malabanan’s table, I am eying a cool pair of green kicks with red swooshes and laces. They are only $60, which shows you how uncool they must actually be. But I don’t have that much cash on me. And this is a cash business. Saved by poverty once again.

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